Pixel Piracy is a side-scrolling 2d, real time strategy/sandbox/simulation game created by indie developer Vitali Kirpu and produced by Alexander Poysky. In the game, the player leads the life of a pirate captain. Recruit a crew, outfit and customize your ship and set sail on the open seas.

My good friend Paul Soars Jr has made a Let's Play video of the current private build of Pixel Privateers and I wanted to take this opportunity to talk a bit about why

WE WILL NOT BE USING EARLY ACCESS FOR THIS TITLE

Let me just blast through the reasons in bullet form, as there are MANY.

1. WE DON'T NEED TO:

We made enough money from clients on Pixel Piracy to warrant upgrading out 2 man NON studio to a 10 man team across 3 countries, with a PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT studio in Turku, Finland; a DESIGN Studio in Murcia, Spain, and freelance artists working to help our LEAD artist (yes we have a PLURAL amount of artists).

2. IT WOULDN'T BE RIGHT:

Even if we NEEDED the money, it wouldn't be right MORALLY. We already went through the motions of game development one time using Early Access and wound up launching a buggy title way too early because we had a very, VERY avid test group of fans who would say it was perfect. By cooking it until perfection on our own terms, we ensure we are giving our clients what they PAY for and not what WE PROMISE THEM WE'LL COME THROUGH ON.

3. EARLY ACCESS IS ABUSED WAAAAY TOO OFTEN:

"Abused" is a very strong term, as we ourselves are guilty of this. When you are making a game, you start out with a wide open field of open doors to potentially go through. When looking for funding, you look through those open doors into ANY direction you want, and promised based on them. Development of a game OBLIGATES a team to close doors little by little, many times closing UNWANTED doors that you PREVIOUSLY promised. Couple that with the fact that nowadays it's STRANGE for a studio to actually launch an Early Access title, and we're looking at an abuse cycle our studio wants to take no part in. We thank each and every one of you who have helped us get to where we are, and we are learning from the past instead of living in it.

4. EARLY ACCESS IS A CRUTCH WE DON'T WANT TO USE.

We feel Early Access is a "Crutch" people use, and it's one we don't need. We should be judged as professionals in a sector where we attempt to thrive and flourish, not flounder and waddle. The only way we can do so is to produce tight, polished games with the risk of having it all go to hell and a handbasket if we launch it and it turns out to be crap. THIS FEAR is what drives us, it's waht makes us fight. If we take that fear away we'd just promise the moon and then deliver something with no "heart".

5. I simply think EA is garbage at this point in time due to the studios misinterpreting how it should be used.

LARGE studios have NO "real" right to be using Early Access. Come on guys, you base your game's sales point on a HUGE mainstream developer's name and push out a pre-alpha tech demo and charge top dollar for it, just to turn around and whine about how "not enough people bought it to make it viable so we pulled the plug." That has a name where I come from, and it's bullshit, I'm calling you guys on it and will show you how it's supposed to be done. I'm not a AAA studio, I'm BARELY a mid-range studio, and I'm sitting here working on a staurday afternoon after having had my spine collapse on me and having been bedridden for two months now.

If you want the respect of your fans, if you want your "legitimacy" as a game development studio or a world renowned developer or an "ace" producer, don't beat aroudn the bush, don't cash out, don't cut corners and get the job done. I'm sick and tired of Kickstarter, Early Access and all of these startup programs that are supposed to be used by people who NEED the means to get their projects off the ground abused by these Big Name so-and-so's and their rock solid reputations (or not). Why don't you find a publisher to put two million into your idea and get it done? Oh, what's that? Because when you don't come through on a Kickstart or Early Access promise you only dick over a client, and doing the same to a PUBLISHER will hurt because they have nasty lawyers? Well tough s**t friend, them's the bricks.

Oh man that felt good to get off my chest!

Anyways, have a great weekend and expect Privateers to launch in the April-July 2015 time of the year, shortly after Pixel Piracy ENHANCED (WHICH is a COMPLETELY FREE Upgrade of Pixel Piracy that we have put around 100 thousand dollars into between artists, refractored code, man hours, expenses from external companies that have to come in and UN-mess up out game engine, etc, COMPLETELY FREE, just to clear our name and prove we are sorry for having participated in the injustice that is Early Access.).

February 13

Hey there everyone, I just wanted to let you all know that I haven't been updating the announcements page due to me having had to get some urgent medical care.

My legs straight up gave out on me and I was in incredible pain. It turns out I had a pretty crappy swollen bit of muscle tissue right on top of the nerves that support my lower back, hence me having been crippled by pain!

Interestingly enough it only required a simple anti-inflammatory shot right on the source. The BAD part was that the source was INSIDE my spine so, yeah, 9 cm needle inside the spine, something I WON'T reccomend. 0/10 would not crippling pain again!

Anyways, I'm back at work and have been informed that Mikko has been hard at work tweaking shop values, loot tables, in his own words...

"...currently underway are shops and loot tables, with some revisions in place already, and others coming after playtesting rounds... tools are in place to easily modify all of this data, bottleneck is currently the amount of testing and feedback based on the beta builds we can get in (for example: I feel that this and this sword costs too little or drops too early in the game)
Aaron and Zack, the two most active testers are busy with their lives and it's not the same as having someone work QA full-time"

The more we test, the better we can tweak, so I'd like to shout out to anyone with testing experience to get in touch via our forums and see if we can speed things along!

Reviews

“Wow, a 10/10, but why?! Why? because this game managed to captured my heart immediately, with its excellent sound effects, cute, even if unpolished, pixel art and the ability to not only lead a pirate life, but do it with your own customized ship and crew. the promised features will make it from a 8/10 right now to the 10/10 it could be. should be. will be. this one is bound to be a classic, and not reviewing it as such would only make me look fool in hindsight.”
10 – Indiedb

“Pixel Piracy is a loveable game with its own barrel of charm the mood seems perfect and I can just forget all my other needs. I can't help but hear the sounds the pirates make every now and again even when I'm not playing. Very interested to see where this games goes down the line. The loss of my pirates may seem a bit unforgiving at the moment but I'l only try harder next time ! If you like a bit of randomness and the ability to design your own ship, assemble your crew whilst managing their needs then you might as well try this out.”
9.5 – Indiedb

“I don't give games a 10/10 that often, if not ever. But this game has so much going on for it, and it is under the radar right now. So, do yourself a favor, download the demo, have an awesome time, and then buy this game, cause it really is a gem. If you like pirates, and high sea adventure in highly randomized generated worlds, this is the game for you! It is very unforgiving, so you have to be very sure about your intentions when you play. One false planning and you have to start over from scratch (although there outside methods to save your game if you want to "cheat" save so do not worry). But the gameplay is fun, the art style, and sound effects are smarmy and swaggy. If you don't like this game, just walk the plank, because you don't enjoy fun things evidently :)”
9.7 – Indiedb

About This Game

Pixel Piracy is a side-scrolling 2d, real time strategy/sandbox/simulation game created by indie developer Vitali Kirpu and produced by Alexander Poysky.
In the game, the player leads the life of a pirate captain. Recruit a crew, outfit and customize your ship and set sail on the open seas. There you’ll use any combination of aggression, diversion and trade to become the most infamous pirate crew of the seven seas! You can raid, pillage and plunder everything in your path, divert and lie to get what you want or trade for a quick buck. Remember to be careful though, death is everywhere and quite permanent! Adventure awaits…

Current features:

Sandbox open world Pirate simulator.
Procedurally generated world that changes each new game you play. While not a Roguelike in the strictest of sense, it does strike of one.
Vast over-world map full of danger, loot, and people to prey on.
Comprehensive loot system, upgrade-able weapons and armor, special and secret loot to deck out your sailors.
Parrots, Pets and Plunder!!
Death around every corner, our permadeath system will have you tearing your hair out at each loss and shrieking in delight at each victory.
Each playthrough will require around 20 hours to get through (with at least 4 playthroughs needed to see all the game has to offer)
CONSTANT updates and content patches. We update on a weekly basis (Friday), and will continue to do so for at least a year after launch in order to provide many new systems, fixes, and bits of content.

For more details on the game visit or follow us @pixelpiracygame or @alexpoysky or visit www.piracysim.com

The game has been abandoned by the original Devs and they've hired another guy to basically do little more than bug fix. The addition of new features is a pipe dream that will likely never come true. Over a year ago the original devs were promising all sorts of things ("Both seamonsters AND weather are already on the drawing board. Expect them within a month or so!" - December 2013). None of these things happened and were lies.

The game has Three locations and that is it. Islands, where you kill anyone on it. Sea battles, where you just board a ship or shoot it. Town islands, where you buy things and hire new pirates. At the start the game is pretty fun until you realise this is literally all there is to the game, the mechanics do not develop, new things are not introduced. You will do the same thing you did in hour 1 in hour 100 (Other than shoot cannons). Cannon fights are ridiculous, you could spend tens of hours collecting a crew, training them, equipping them and yet in a single cannon fight many of them will die, making all your hard work pointless.

There is no real plot. No real characters. The music is average. The graphics are frankly lazy, every island is the same and the background for the world is always the same. The gameplay is basic (You order your entire crew with 1 click..you cannot individually select) and it does not develop. Frankly, the Devs should be ashamed for cashing in on an idea and then abandoning it, breaking hundreds of promises they made and hiring some random guy to do little more than take the blame.

Don't buy the game, the developers don't deserve the money and it sends out the wrong message if you do so.

Edit: After announcing they were making a new game and seeing the negative reception it got, they announced a "free redux edition" for the game a week later, in an attempt to win back fans. This doesn't change my review. The game is still currently poor, was released unfinished and it's taken the dev 6 months of silence before announcing anything.

An unfinished, unpolished gem. This could be a really good game, though even after the full release, the game is riddled with bugs and is generally not an enjoyable experience. Many other reviews cover that. This game is a perfect example of the downfalls of early access.

One of the developers said this on the forums in response to their supposed shady development:

Vitali Kirpu [developer]: "We are not shady, we have alot of funds to fund pixel piracy development for the next 1-2 years or so.

My point is that it doesnt matter for us if the game is early access or full release, updates will keep coming untill nobody ever plays the game."

Take that however you want.. To me it say's "keep buying our unfinished game, and in 1-2 years you may have the privilege of a finished product"

it's an interesting glimpse of the truth of early acsess on steam. For the few good games that have thrived from early access, we as a community are left with hundreds of games just like pixel piracy.

I'm surprised this isn't Early Access, as it feels incomplete as-is and suffers a few game-breaking bugs. Skills and items, like Ship Repair and Chicken Nests, are obviously not finished/implemented into the game. There are also a few odd design choices that affect the game balance. Certain buffs are able to be applied to all crew members and stack, therefore making the game an odd one where it gets exponentially easier as it goes on. The first island should not feel more difficult than the final boss(es), imo.

Gameplay wise, it's surprisingly similar to FTL. The ship combat and map, at least, have a lot of the same feel. You hire crew (which you have to keep healthy, happy, and fed), and you sail around plundering. There are three location types in the game - islands, towns, and other ships. Within those three, there are a few different flavours (cannibals or hags on islands, big ships or little ships, towns wih differing supplies). With the exception of a few bounty hunter fetch quests, and an option at the beginning to toggle a plague (which I didn't), there are no other events or surprises in the game. It starts to feel remarkably similar after a while, but more content should be on the way. The goal is to beat up progressively tougher opponants for progressively better loot, until you fight the final four bosses (conveniently spread WAY OUT across the huge map). Defeat them, and you get a cute song and the ability to continue playing. I'd suggest watching the cute song on Youtube and buying FTL.

About 14 hours to complete Campaign mode on Beginner settings. I'd say around 3 of those hours (at least) was spent sailing - ie browsing the web in Steam's overlay, and closer to 8 hours if you don't count restarting after bugs/crashes (e.g. reloading caused my first mate to become captain while my captain was still alive, neither could progress).

All that said, it's not a BAD game. I enjoyed it, but have no desire to play it any longer as is. When it's done, it'll probably be a pretty fun open world pirate sim. It definately has charm and personality. Certainly it's not worth the price right now, in Oct 2014. Check it out in a year and see where it's at.

An open world pirate game with old school pixel graphics, yeah sounds great, right?

But what you get is a buggy mess. The AI is terrible, the UI is unintuative and for some reason the graphics are blurry as hell, as if vaselene was smeared all over the screen. Theres a bloom slider, but it doesnt appear to fix the blur.

I must ask WHO THE HELL PUTS BLOOM IN A PIXEL GAME!? Yeah, just what I needed. Light effect on my *pixels*. Really really bad idea. And its just one of many.

This game is supposed to be complete, but it plays like an alpha. Theres no tutorials, enemies and guys spawn in places where they get stuck, bugs galore...I could go on.

I want to recommend this game. I really do but at the game's current stage, I cannot. When I first checked that it was created by creators of Terraria, I thought to myself, "Hey, here's a nice lay-back game I could play. The creators should know how to make worlds in this game."

Then I get smacked in the face like just 3-4 hours into the game. The world does seem large and vast with variety in it, AT FIRST. Then after a while, the flaws of the game becomes so glaringly sharp that it just feels dull.

I haven't been to Lv6 or above island/pirate ships yet but except for your possible starting weapon, the Falcon Blade, there are absolutely no unique weapons. Even the Falcon Blade falls short after getting a crew of 5 combat-able pirates. After that it's just a plain Zerg rush onto enemy ships or hostile islands and wiping the populace from the face of the Earth. I guess if you want just a generic army with nothing truly special about them, this works. I wanted to feel special though.

Enemy pirate ships are not RNG encounters. They are actually listed on the map for you to go to beat up. After that, they're gone completely. So while you're traveling from point A to point B, you're sitting there looking at the screen for 1-2 minutes while playing games on your iPhone because literally nothing ever happens. In the beginning of the game, there were a rare instance of a Fishman jumping onto my ship and I had to kill it off but that never happens once you upgrade your ship to a larger one. All you will ever see on screen are your pirates pooping all over the deck, fishing for food, eating, text bubbles going so fast that you can barely read what they say and it's just plain BORING.

The chests in this game are absolutely disappointing. Except for the buried chests, the chests you find on islands and enemy ships yield about 3-10g depending on how many pirates have the 'More Gold in Chests' skill and their levels. Item loots are about 90% of the time grindstones to increase your melee weapons' damage. There are grindstones for ranged but you can only buy those. I would expect an enemy galleon to have way more than 10g and 2 grindstones in their stupid treasury box.

Game looks nice. Feels nice. Doesn't follow through. $10? Well I paid $7.50 since I had a coupon but... I've had $1 iPhone games that I've played for 20 hours so... You doods should wait.

This game embodies everything that is wrong with the industry. It was released as full game, yet months later they are still adding things like making an end game, and fixing bugs that make it impossible to finish. The only tips and tricks to playing this stunted piece of garbage are ways to avoid game breaking bugs and make the game actually work. Very few of these tips come from the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥s that took our money and told us to ♥♥♥♥ ourselves. Watch out for this dev in the future and avoid any trash that they release. Read the dev reports and you'll see how little work these ♥♥♥♥ suckers do on an unfinished game that we've already paid for.

I bought this game when it was in Early Access. The developers made plenty of long-winded statements about morality and ethics in video game development as it pertains to Beta releases and the consumer's rights. For a little while updates were weekly, every Friday. Then out of nowhere the game was suddenly released as 1.0, claimed to be complete, and we were assured that development would still continue. Fast forward months later, the game is far from complete, not to mention buggy.

* The user interface is bad.* Lots of minor bugs.* Lack on content, you can attack islands and ship only, then repeat.* You have no idea what most stuff do.

* They abandoned pixel piracy to make the new pixel piracy enchanced edition but promissed to give the new enchanced edition to current pixel piracy players BUT they changed their minds a month later...

Alas; I've fallen into the same conundrum I have found myself in time and time again, and yet I keep managing to find myself doing it over and over again.

"This game has potential."

Now, let's talk about the word potential for a minute here. How many Indie Early Access titles can you name that could have easily been described by using the phrase "This game has potential"? I'll give you a few seconds to think of a few.

So, now that you've got those Indie Games in your head, how many of them have excecuted that potential in a positive way, and how many of them have done absolutely nothing other than the rare few who give out monthly bugfixes and minor updates at best? Here's a couple games off of the top of my mind that fall under the second catagory: Seven Days to Die, Starforge, The Forest, Cortex Command, and now sadly, Pixel Piracy.

Now, I'm NOT saying that all early access games that have potential never work out, but the ones that end up turning into something awesome are far and few between. A good example of a well excecuted early access title would definitely have to be Starbound by Chucklefish Studios.

Now you're asking "Yeah? So what are you getting at"? Basically what I'm trying to say is that you should probably hold on to your money for the time being. This game has potential to be good, but always consider that this potential might just end up being wasted. Just remember- when reading reviews, always look for that dreaded P-word, and think of it means before spending your money.

I really was looking forward to this game being a fun, exploratory and great mechanics but it fell short on all three accounts.

At the start of the game I had a great feeling and energy that this was going to be fun. Granted, the first 3-4 times I had trouble surviving and making it as a scurvy seadog. But then I figured out the game and then everything was a breeze to progress from early game to mid and late game. That is also a downside with the game, a lack of any kind of useful tutorial, you just have to read and read alot of text in a help screen (which to me screams the devs just wanted this game out, at whatever quality).

The second thing that strikes me is the horrible control scheme and GUI. You can only really precision control your own unit (the captain) and everyone else does their best to do what you tell them. Some commands are "drag" commands and some are "action" commands and I don't see a reason why the control of your crew should be this bad. When you order your crew to move, all run as fast as possible to that spot, meaning the fastest guy gets there first, but might not engage the enemy first cause they engage in wierd ways. The control of the crew and pets is aweful, have not been thought out and when boarding ships with a crew, some can fall into the water directly killing them or makes them unavaiable for a time if you're lucky. Another minor gripe is the constant is the constant nagging if you want to "save", and you can just tell it to not ask you in the next 10 minutes, but then you can't save in over 10 minutes which is real bad.

Your crew can be trained in skills aswell as your captain, like fishing (which is useful as it gives you free food), and cooking (to coock the free fish). This system is extremely flawed and if you would like to have a crew that can both catch & cook fish and clean, they will be almost useless. This is because fishing takes a bit of time, and while the rod is out in the water, the desire to clean (tossing poo overboard, fitting description later on?) comes on and ABORTS the fishing. So a sole crewman with the fishing skill is required to catch alot of fish. This could be okay if not for items on your ship disrupt your crew in the same manner. Yes, items on your ship like playing cards, sword practice or reading books stops your crew randomly from doing what they can, just to give them some morale or more Training points. It's flawed once again, you can work around the broken mechanics, but what's the point if you can't play the game as you want?

I have many more gripes about this game and I just think this game becomes an utter disappointment at the end. I like to make my captain a strong soldier alone in my second playthrough to have control and it was a breeze to clear ship after ship with just him. even the bosses. And getting there was soo boring and repetitive. The potential for what could have been is huge!!! But this is just a skeleton with no added meat or flavor to it, it is just not a good game i'm sad to say. I just can't recommend this game to my friends because then I would be ashamed and they would hate it, it just isn't worth any more time.

Pros:+ Nice pixelart+ Good character customization, differnet voices and looks+ Build your own ship, sail the seas (in the start)

Cons:- Slow paced. Going on land is slow and tedious and have to wait minutes to get any buisness done. More fun if paced more correctly with the actual content.- Sailing. a core mechanic is "sail-time". You see your boat travel and you crew working, but is really a boring wait screen- Random Generator. yeah, it works, but it doesn't tell what the worldcreator options really do and can make maps really hard or really easy- Crew control. You really can't control them, commands are clunky and don't work as advertiesed.- Crew. Don't see a reason for them unless they fish for you.- Skills and Items. Both of them interupts other skills and jobs, making having both not an option.- Lack of variation. both in what you explore, music and combat.- Difficulty. Only challanging in the beginning, then a grindfest begins, then you can kill the bosses.- GUI. Some icons you drag, some buttons you click, some commands don't work and no control over individuals.- Boarding. Sometimes your crew could board the enemy just to fall off and die. You can board outside of the boarding phase.

There are probably more problems that I've forcefully pushed out of my memory. But this is not a well-made, polished game. But a broken mess of great potential. This game falls short and would get a 3/10 if I would grade it.

Features include:-Ships-Drinks that don't do sh*t(UPDATE: Drinks do do sh*t now, ain't that amazing!?)-Lazy Town reference!-The ability to sh*t wherever you want on your ship-The ability for seagulls to sh*t wherever they want on your ship-The ability for your crew besides yourself to sh*t wherever they want on your ship-The ability to learn how to do exciting things like read how to sh*t less frequently and clean up all the said sh*t on your ship-Diapers which can stop the crew from sh*tting on your ship completely-Amazing things like finding bras and panties in buried treasure chests which restore morale-Lazy-a** pirates stealing your gold when you go for a drink in the tavern-Cannons which don't do sh*t-Explosions-Hobos-Hobos you can kill-Hobos that can kill you-Hobos which don't sh*t, be it on your ship or not-Stranded hobos you can kill-Get achievements for killing hobos-Probably have hobos as pets.. maybe. Mostly likely. Possibly. Perhaps.-Disturb tribals on islands-Board ships and blow them up or steal them to sink your own-SHIVERMETIMBERSSHIVERMETIMBERSSHIVERMETIMBERS-Holy f*ck man look at how many cards you need to complete a badge

Ok before i am judged for my good rating I shall explain. The game has high and low points so to start off I shall give the low points of the game.

1.The beginning. Honestly I just found the beginning boring i wanted something a bit more exciting than just appearing at the menu.

2. The directions. After I made my character I was so confused on what to do next. I looked at the help section but it didn't help much. So honestly I dont think it was implemented well.

Now for the good things in the game.

1. The freedom. I enjoyed the fact that the game doesn't hold your hand. You have to learn how to do things. Its doesn't explicitly tell you. The fact that you only have one objective and that is to beat 4 major pirates gives the player something to work towards while exploring and pilaging like a pirate. I didnt have to go talk to npc's to unlock new areas I could go wherever I wanted. But bear in mind that even though you can go anywhere you should be cautious. You run the risk of sailing into an enemy that could wipe you out in an instant.

2. Creation. I loved the ship creation the most, you can make what you want and it is awesome. I also love that you have the option of capturing a ship if you kill the crew.

3. Stats and leveling up.The leveling up in the game is fun and how you get skills is cool. Also the fact that your pirate can have alot of different skills. Leveling up feels good cause the stats influence gameplay heavily. For example if you upgrade strength alot your character will be a tank that can kill enemies easily,or if you increase vitality you can last longer in a battle. It is small things like this that make it enjoyable.

All in all this game is not for everyone.

However if you are willing to put in a good amount of hours into it you will be satisfied with what you achieve. Especially if you like leveling up games.

Got this game for free by one of the devs as a gift, back in xmas when copies of the game were being thrown arround. I have spend 0€'s on this, and because of that, I feel bad for the people who actually bought it. I'll go with the bad stuff first:

The biggest dissapointment is that the game is unfinished. This is something that I just can't tolerate. You don't sell someone a house without roof, so you should NOT sell an unfinished game. Does the game have the features that the devs promised? No weather system, no sea-monster battles, no hideouts, no bases,you don't get much with a 10€ purchase. You have islands where most of the NPC's (or all of them) are hostile, peaceful islands where you can buy stuff, and ship battles that are bland and repetitive. And that's another thing...

Sea battles. They're horse-sh#t. Maybe at the start, they're somewhat okay, you just tell your guys to aboard a little ship, or they board yours... But then later on, they have cannons, you have cannons, and all the fun explodes. Crew members are expensive and take forever to train so they're useful (and training also takes money), but they die easily by the cannons. AND THAT'S ANOTHER THING TOO!

You only have two commands to give: Either move the captain arround, or move everyone else. That's it. I'm not kidding. Mouse 1 selects a place where your captain can move, and Mouse 2 moves everyone else to that point. You can't, for example, tell someone to stay ready at the cannons, or to stay cooking for everyone else. Your pirates, captain included, will do whatever they feel like. This isn't Sims 2, this is a Pirate Simulator, and let me tell you, PIRATES WERE COORDINATED. If they weren't, THEY WOULDN'T HAVE A CAPTAIN!

I've also managed to find bugs. I mean, it's no surprise, I'm able to find bugs even on my house (the lightning works like sh#t, and the windows barely work, everyone smokes weed, 4/20), but I'm talking about bugs that force you to restart the game (being stuck on the enemy ship, even though you blew it up and can't go back), and even bugs that will force you to restart the game again! (crew members, captain included, suddenly refuse to eat, I managed to find out that boarding another ship and taking it for your own fixes it temporally) And I refuse to think that they haven't found any of these bugs yet. I found them in less than an hour of playing the game.

That being said, does the game have good stuff? Yeah, there's a lot of potential for a great game, but sadly the Devs left the boat (ironic) to make other games. I remember that in December of 2013, they promised those features to be added. We're in 2015. It's been more than a whole year, and the only thing that was added have been Steam cards and achievements. Oh, and some XMas items. The characters look okay, the voices and soundtrack are decent, the gameplay can be dull at times, but it's fun for a few hours, the graphics are beautiful but lazy (you see the same stuff WAAAAAY too much), the character and world creating is creative, even though it doesn't seem to matter much in the end, there are some good references to other games and movies hidden arround there, though I expected more... And it goes on to infinity.

I can't bring myself to recommend the game. I really want to, because I had fun for a while... But I can't even bring myself to finish it. Why? Because I know it's going to be the same, over again. I defeated one of the 4 "Legendary Captains" without much effort, and the other 3 will surely be the same. There's no story either, so why would I expect an ending? It's probably a screen with text, and maybe some credits. If they EVER finish the game, then I'll play it again, redo the review, and update it, maybe even recommend it. But for now? Spending 10€ on this is a ripoff. Maybe just wait for a sale that drops it arround 1-3€ if you're interested in helping the devs, that's it.

Saw some popular youtubers playing this a while back. I bought it, because it seemed like a great game, and the fact that it was early access just meant that it would be added to above this to me, so I downloaded it.

Upon launch, crash. Well, okay then, I suppose it's early access.Launch again, play for a bit. To be honest I would have prefered it crash again. You don't have any freedom to create a ship, it's like being told to build big ben and being given half a bucket of lego bricks.

As far as actually playing goes, it was about as balanced as the ocean we were sailing on. I would either painfully slowly watch as I got a tiny bit of income after paying my crew and buying essential supplies, because the gameplay just does not pay up. The fighting is pretty much just throw all your crew at the other ship, if you have more crew, you might well win. If not, then you're going to come out of that fight dead or with less crew, and at that point, it's going to take a while to get another crew member.

And that's just the ship fights, you so much as set foot on an island and the locals will maul you to death. And then I see that there are 'epics' floating around in the open waters. Packed full of crew. And cannons. Yeah! there are cannons. Good luck ever finding out how the hell you can get them on your ship, never played long enough.

Oh and then it crashed. I said I might come back and have a look later when it's further through development.What's that? The developers abandoned it and left a single man on the case?

I decided to take on one of the bosses. That was a bad idea. I had 11 crew members and 7 of them died in the battle. 2 of them proceeded to throw themselves off the ship into the sea. I then had 2 crew members left. My captain and a guy at 20 health and bleeding. I finally got back to a town to see that they didn't have the right store. He died, 2 minutes later my captain died too. 10/10

Really I do not think this game is worth the time and money. It has a smallish world and it just has that feeling that it is not that good of a game, from the items to the ship making. seems neat but not really.